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Topguest Checks In With $2 Million Series A Round (And Peter Thiel as Adviser)

Published on November 15, 2010by Kara Swisher

Topguest, a check-in loyalty service that was founded just five months ago, has gotten $2 million in Series A funding, as well as nabbing well-known Facebook investor Peter Thiel as an adviser.

Investors in the round include: Thiel’s Founders Fund, as well as angels such as Ron Conway, Keith Rabois, Jeff Clavier and Naval Ravikant.

Topguest is exiting its beta phase today with partners that include Virgin America, Hilton, Wyndham Worldwide, Kimpton and others.

Using Topguest, those companies can offer deals, making large travel and hospitality loyalty programs social by plugging them into smartphones and geolocation.

Users check in with their existing services–such as Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook Places and Gowalla–in order to get benefits such as air miles for your Virgin Elevate account and hotel points for Hilton HHonors.

Topguest is competing in a crowded market, where a lot of such services are offering many kinds of deals.

The San Francisco start-up is most like another service aimed at retailers called Shopkick, where you get points when you check in to its mobile app.

Topguest said the differentiator is that it links into geolocation services already in use, instead of requiring another different check-in and offers points in already existing loyalty programs.